The Bill was drafted by Justice Alliance of South Africa (JASA), an anti-gay, anti-choice organisation. The countries mentioned by JASA as having enacted similar legislation to the proposal Bill – Yemen and the United Arab Emirates – both censor LGBT as well as political content that they deem undesirable.

Taking into consideration the social context within which laws operate in South Africa, where violence against lesbian women and transgender people is common, “a law focusing on sexual content is likely to see content that focuses on lesbian sexuality or even women’s sexuality as deviant and undesirable” says Shackleton.

“The Law Reform Commission in South Africa, tasked with investigating internet pornography should consider freeing up funds from the Universal Access Fund to promote positive content by women and for women,” says Shackleton. “That way we tip the balance of content in favour of more positive representations of women and more diversity.”

“The Law Reform Commission’s investigation at the very least must be framed by considering that children and women are not the same entity. Children are a separate category of people that require very different legislative approaches than those addressing women,” Shackleton concludes.

Shikoh Gitau, a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science, has bagged the prestigious Google Anita Borg Memorial Award for 2010, the first recipient from sub-Saharan Africa.

The award is given to female students who show exceptional academic and leadership skills in computing and technology. The award carries a cash prize and a visit to Google’s Engineering Centre in Zurich for a networking retreat.

From June 7 – 11, South Asian APC member Bytes for All will unite fellow APC members and women activists alike for a joint event, funded by the APC’s Member Exchange Fund. Representatives from several APC organisations will meet in Islamabad to attend a workshop on digital storytelling and learn how to Take Back the Tech! to end violence against women. This Feminist Tech Exchange will unite 12 – 15 activist women so they can be trained to further train others in the Asian region.

Aramanzan Madanda, at a recent seminar on the interconnections of violence against women and ICTs in Uganda, noted that divulging “personal details on social networking sites such as Facebook .. compromises privacy and possibly security.” Research connected to the MDG3 Project: Take Back the Tech! to end violence against women found “that spouses often used mobile phones to monitor their spouses all the time. They expect the spouses…to answer calls instantly.

In India, especially rural India, it’s no secret that inequalities between men and women and between castes are deep. Strong traditional and cultural values dictate who has the power, and while government attempts to include gender on the official agenda in traditional sectors like health and education, including gender considerations into rural e-governance in India’s poorest state, Chhattisgarh, has been a challenge for Dr.

For four days from March 31, fifteen women gathered at the Feminist Tech Exchange in the Brazzaville (Congo) Digital Campus. Participants and trainers alike came from human and women’s rights organisations, the media and politics to learn more about how to use technology to end violence against women and girls. APC member Azur Développement was involved in putting on the event which talked about the hows and whys of blogging, using video, audio and mobile phones, as well as social networking. The FTX is a part of the APC’s Take Back the Tech!

Over the last decade, the internet has been censored and content regulated and the principal reason cited by governments across all geopolitical spectrums has been sex – or “harmful sexual content”. But online sexual content ranges from information on sexual health to fighting sexual violence and can also be very important to people’s right to freedom of expression and right to information.

This APC media brief examines regulation and censorship of sexual content as part of APC WNSP’s Exploratory Research on Internet and Sexuality (EroTICs) on how different people in different parts of the world are really using the internet related to sex. Results will be published at the end of 2010 but initial findings are now online
The EroTICs research is being carried out with support from the Ford Foundation.

Girls and women from Brazzaville, Pointe Noire and Kinkala participated in a Feminist Tech Exchange training on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to combat violence against women and girls 31 March – 3 April. Sylvie Niombo of AZUR Development, country coordinator of the MDG3 project Take back the Tech! to end violence against women commented in the Congolese Women on the Web blog: “During the three days, participants exchanged views on relevant issues such as judicial procedures to follow for women and girls victims of violence, the presence of Congolese women in the blogosphere and also the use of citizen media for women citizens’ rights activists.

While in Africa and Latin America organisations are trying to make telecentres more accommodating to women’s needs, telecentres in the Philippines are attracting far more women than men. How can telecentres be a leveller for women’s and men’s access to the internet given that Filipino men primarily choose commercially-run internet cafes over the more socially-focused telecentres where games and pornography are not allowed?

A study which looked at two rural telecentres using the APC’s Gender Evaluation Methodology (GEM) revealed the reasons behind this self-imposed segregation, how Filipino men and women use the internet differently and why telecentres are seen as mostly female spaces.

In March GenARDIS grant winners met for the last time after more than a year of innovative research and work to improve rural women’s lives in countries like Ethiopia, the Dominican Republic and Zambia. With projects as diverse as community radio drama groups, pest control through information access and using technology to promote women’s inheritance and land rights, projects were as diverse as the countries they came from. But as this third round of small grants winds down, participants are determined to scale up their work.

“If a boy wants to attend a computer course community members encourage him but if a girl wants to go elders ask her why she wants to complicate her life,” says Dhaka-based Mahmud Hasan. In a country where one in every two males accesses information online yet only three in a hundred Bangladeshi women do, access for schoolgirls is not just about the availability of computers and classes. For girls, it requires the support of the entire community and flexible school schedules as revealed by a study using APC’s Gender Evaluation Methodology (GEM).

What is the linkage between sexuality and the internet? Why is the protection of users from the ‘harm’ of pornographic content often the principal reason given to regulate the flow of information and exchange over the internet? How does it work in reality, and how does it impact on our ability to access information, form relationships, build communities, create knowledge and exercise self-determination in terms of our sexuality and sexual rights?

Media issues and ICTs (information and communication technologies) should not be viewed in isolation, nor subjected to the logic of static hierarchies, says Magaly Pazello in her editorial for GenderIT.org’s “Sexuality and the Internet” edition. Both authoritarian governments and participative democracies have defended the false idea that we must choose between rights/freedom and responsibility/protection. Often used to justify this contradiction, gender and sexuality are at the heart of policies to regulate the internet

One World Platform for South East Europe (OWPSEE) joins women’s organisations in Bosnia and Herzegonia in protest over media’s irresponsibility in the handling of a case involving a 15-year-old girl who was forced into prostitution. Religious, school and other prominent community leaders are possibly implicated in accusations of human trafficking. Valentina Pellizzer, OWPSEE’s Executive Director and APC WNSP member, expressed outrage at media coverage that exposed the under-age victim’s name, photo, school, address, and family members in blatant violation of ethical and legal norms for protection of victims’ safety and privacy. Local women’s rights organisations are calling for immediate and effective action from authorities to address increasing cases of human trafficking. The organisations are joined by professional journalist associations in demanding sanction of the sensationalist reporting in this case, as well as public apology to the victim and her family.

Heike Jensen, researcher and lecturer at the Department of Gender Studies of Humboldt University in Berlin (Germany) and APC WNSP member, takes this view of Section J at the 54th Commission on the Status of Women: “[The J Spot] seems to prove almost as elusive as locating its embodied cousin has turned out to be. First of all, you will not find the J Spot in this year’s intergovernmental and other official debates or proposed resolutions.

Jac sm Kee, the Women’s Rights and ICT Policy coordinator for APC WNSP, reviews the UN Secretary-General’s report on the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (E/CN.6/2010/2) and assess how close we are to realizing women’s right to communicate: “I wasn’t present at the Beijing Conference in 1995, and having missed it, I feel like I have missed out on one of the most important moments in the history of the women’s movement. From the stories I hear, it was truly a time when change not only felt possible, but was a tangible foothold away”.

Since January, sectarian strife has ripped through Nigerian communities. “A mass burial took place the day before yesterday and body counts are close to three hundred with over 80% of them women and children,” APC member John Dada told APC. “It is ironic that in the month of the Celebration of Women’s Day, such atrocities are being visited on innocent women and children.” Women are culturally respected as the givers of life and John blames deepening poverty and economic alienation for the cultural reversal but he sees a potential solution.

Manavy Chim, Executive Director of Open Institute in Cambodia and APC WNSP partner in a 12-country project using ICTs to end violence against women (VAW) is interviewed by Sopheap Chak on the occasion of International Women’s Day. Open Institute’s women web portal is the first-ever of its kind in Khmer, and has made information on women’s rights and the reality of VAW available to more than 2000 visitors daily. Says Manavy:“It is imperative that women are able to draw on available resources to combat VAW. Access to ICT can be seen as central issue concerning empowerment of women.”

In celebration of International Women’s Day, the Feminist Tech Exchange (FTX) is launching its new website . The FTX is both a training initiative for women’s rights advocates and a community of feminist and technology activists. The FTX was developed by the Association for Progressive Communications Women’s Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP) in response to calls from feminist and women’s rights movements for greater understanding of emerging technologies, their potential and impact on the rights and lives of women.

Sharon Bhagwan Rolls from FemLink Pacific talks to Jan Moolman about Section J during the 15-year review of the Beijing Platform for Action in New York. “Section J is not just about women and the media, it is about media and communications systems.”

“It is talking about appropriate use of ICT...from Flip cameras to suitcase radio, women developed that policy and we need to reclaim it not just as media activists but also as the women’s movement. The rest of the women’s movement also needs to engage with Section J and work with women who are working on Section J…. if no one else is going to broadcast or publish it, we will.”

Bhagwan-Rolls, from Femlink Pacific, was at one of the few events that dealt with “section J” (the only part of the Platform of Action that deals with media and ICTs) in the Beijing+15 meetings that are going on in New York till March 12. At the 29th floor of a sky-scraper near UN headquarters, with an incredible view of Manhattan’s sunset, a team of media and gender activists (coordinated by the World Association of Christian Communication) presented the preliminary findings of their global report on women in the media. Analia Lavin blogs for GenderIT.org’s Feminist Talk.

In India’s rural e-governance initiative, 33% of local government seats are reserved for women. Rural village heads of Chhattisgarh State – one of India’s poorest— can now participate in the public process and in theory remotely communicate the needs of their villages through the use of a low-cost computer that does not require computer literacy. But women are not taking the active roles that were expected. Using GEM, APC’s gender evaluation methodology, Dr.

Maria Suárez refers to the “‘J’ spot” in an article exploring why Section J was not a priority issue during the 2005 Beijing +10 review. Five years later, can we claim that women’s media and ICTs are now supported? Do we still feel forced into ‘choosing’ between the struggle to end violence against women or eradicate poverty and the struggle for our rights to freedom of expression, access to information, and to tell our own stories? GenderIT.org guest editor Jan Moolman talks about looking for the “J spot” at the upcoming Beijing + 15 review during the 54th session of the Commission of the Status of Women.

GenderIT.org takes a cross-country look at violence against women (VAW) and ICT laws and policy in Asia and Latin America, based on country reports highlighted in GenderIT’s previous VAW and ICT edition. They show the connections between women’s rights, violence against women, and ICTs. Guest editor Jan Moolman questions if women’s “J Spot” will be present at the upcoming Beijing Platform for Action 15 year review. Kathleen Diga tracks expressions of gender and power relations between women and men in the African Copyright and Access to Knowledge (ACA2K) project research findings.

With the goal to create awareness about information and communication technologies and violence against women in cyber space, and the implications of various government policies on women, a seminar titled “ICTs and Violence Against Women – Policy Implications” was jointly organized by Bytes for All (B4A) and the Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT & ITES (P@SHA) on 30 January 2010 in Lahore.

From 25 November to 10 December, the message came across loud and clear – whether it was via audiocast in Malaysia, chat relay in Brazil, protest march in Second Life, song-writing in Pakistan, calendars in Argentina, tweets in Mexico, posters in cybercafes in the Congo, or a mural on the streets of Soweto in South Africa. In over a dozen languages and through all platforms and medium both online and off, people took control of technology to end violence against women during the Take Back the Tech! campaign.

The Dominican Republic is the first Latin American country to act on their commitments to involve women in the information society nationwide. This Caribbean island nation of ten million has promised to include a “gender perspective” in every information and communications technology initiative and policy developed by the government from now on. The tool the Dominicans have chosen to design and evaluate all the public policies is the APC gender evaluation methodology (GEM).

Women’sNet, with partner, Artists Say No to Violence Against Women and Children, held an event in Soweto, Johannesburg. They used the occasion of International Human Rights Day, which marks the last day of the 16 Days of Activism to draw attention to the role that new media has to play both as a tool for abuse and as a tool for protest.

Pakistani activists, led by Bytes for All and the Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT and ITES (P@SHA), are taking over the internet cloud and radio airwaves during the 16 days of activism to end violence against women (VAW) in the Pakistan Take Back the Tech! campaign.

Jehan Ara, P@SHA president, is leading “tweeples” in constant tweeting and blogging until violence against women is better addressed in her country.

Women’sNet has just completed painting a mural in Soweto, Chris Hani Bargwanath Hospital wall. The aim of this activity is to launch a global campaign, Take Back the Tech The campaign which calls on all ICT users – especially women and girls – to take control of technology and strategically use any ICT platform at hand (mobile phones, instant messengers, blogs, websites, digital cameras, email, podcasts and more) for activism against gender-based violence.